Public procurement

Free Software
is a perfect fit for the public sector. It is a public resource that
government organisations can use, study, improve, and share with
each other. For citizens, this means transparency, cost efficiency,
and the freedom to interact with their government in the way that
suits them best.

But not all government institutions are taking advantage of Free
Software. In consequence, public funds are being wasted, and
that programs that should be free are being locked away. This
also makes life hard for the Free Software-based companies who
employ people in Europe, and pay their taxes here.

FSFE explains the problem

Procurement is a field for specialists. Many procurement officials are
still not fully aware of Free Software. Combined with intertia in
public sector IT departments, this means that too many public bodies
never look beyond their long-standing relations with suppliers of
non-free software.

At FSFE, we work with journalists and researchers to highlight the
work of public sector organisations that are doing it right. When a
public body makes mistakes, we help them to correct them. And when
necessary, we put pressure on organisations that insist on harmful
ways of buying software.

Why procurement matters

Public procurement spending equals nearly 20% of the EU's GDP 1. The
public sector's procurement choices have very real effects on the
economy, and play a significant role in determining the sort of firms
that thrive in the market.
Even with current procurement practices, Free Software already
delivers very significant benefits for the European economy. Daffara
(2012) estimates that Europeans enjoy 114 billion EUR per year in
direct cost savings thanks to Free Software2.Anecdotal evidence points in the same direction. Many public adminstrations that begin using Free Software see their IT costs drop by 50-90%.

The public sector's buying decisions also has a significant influence
on the development of a healthy supplier ecosystem for Free Software
products and services. With more government institutions as their
customers, many such companies could thrive more quickly, and there
would be more and better Free Software programs available to the
public.

FSFE speaks up when things go wrong...

In 2010, the European Commission made a glaring mistake. The
Commission had issued numerous policy statements in favour of Free
Software and Open Standards. But when it came to buying software and
services for itself, it went straight to Microsoft and its
resellers. Companies offering Free Software never had a chance, even
though their products offered the same functionality.

We saw that the Commission had certainly breached the spirit, if not
the letter, of the law. So we took them to task, generating lots of
press coverage - right up to the New York Times.

We want the European Commission to procure
the software products it needs in an open, competitive fashion,
giving Free Software suppliers the same opportunities as it gives
to proprietary vendors and their resellers.

We want the EC to take a long-term view of its IT strategy,
realise the dangers of lock-in, and figure future exit costs into
the price of any solution it acquires.

This is what the Commission owes to Europe's citizens. Sticking to
the letter and spirit of European procurement law would be an
excellent start.

…and offers independent solutions

Fortunately, most people are more open to progress than that.
We help procurement officials understand the full impact of
their actions, and we help them to do better -- not only for
their organisations, but also for the citizens whom they serve.

At FSFE, we are in constant dialogues with procurement
specialists across Europe. We observe new approaches, identify
what works, and provide analysis to decision makers. We help
specialists in different countries learn from each other.

Related News

The European Commission has recently renewed its commitment to a
proprietary desktop and secret file formats.The Commission is refusing
to get serious about breaking free from vendor lock-in, and is
ignoring all available alternatives. In doing so, the EU's civil
service fails to practice what it preaches.

In
an open
letter to the European Parliament and the European Commission,
Free Software Foundation Europe
and Open Forum Europe are
asking the European institutions to improve their support for Open
Standards. The letter is directed to Giancarlo Vilella, the president
of the European Parliament's DG ITEC and chair of the
Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics.

The Italian government has made Free Software the default choice for public administrations. In a document published last Wednesday, the Italian Digital Agency issued rules saying that all government organisations in the country must consider using Free Software before buying licenses for proprietary programs.

In a Communication published today, the European Commission urges public bodies to break free from vendor lock-in in their IT systems. The Commission wants public bodies to rely on standards rather than brand names and proprietary technology when they buy software.

Days before the protests in Taksim Square erupted, President Erdoğan was in America. On behalf of an ambitious education investment project called FATIH, he toured Silicon Valley as the guest of America's largest technology companies, each of whom are hoping to land a contract for more than 10 million new tablet computers.

On April 27, the administrative court of Almada, Portugal, declared a 550, 000 Euro contract between Microsoft and the municipality of Almada to be illegal. The technical specifications of the competition launched by the municipality prevented any company other than Microsoft and their partners to submit a proposal.

Last May 23th, the Council of Region Lazio, Italy, approved a Regional Law
on "Reuse of information and public data, and connected initiatives". With
further regulation, methods and technical rules for reusing software will be
determined. In the meantime, we proposed them a checklist of motivations by
which both Institutions and the Community would be advantages by a migration
to systems based on Free Software.

The IT department of the city of Helsinki claimed in a report to the city board that migrating to OpenOffice would cost is over 21 million euros. On 10th of April 2012, FSFE filed a Freedom of Information request, asking the city how it had arrived at a surprisingly high cost estimates for running OpenOffice (now LibreOffice) on the city's workstations. The city of Helsinki has now denied this request and has stated that it will not release any details about the calculations.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has started an initiative to advance fair public procurements in Finland. The initiative concentrates on IT related procurement notices that require brand instead of defining functionalities required by the procurer. To date FSFE has skimmed over 300 procurement notices, and of those taken into closer analysis, 14 have been found to clearly violate the Finnish procurement law. These violating notices explicitly asked for tenders of specific brands of software manufacturers or products and thus discriminate all other brands and manufacturers, effectively stopping free competition.

City officials in Helsinki, Finland, are overwhelmingly
satisfied after trying
out the Free Software office suite OpenOffice.org on their laptops. 75% of 600
officials have been using OpenOffice.org exclusively since February, as part of
a pilot project where the city installed the program on 22,500 workstations.

Our Work

As a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, Free Software Foundation
Europe works to create general understanding and support for Free Software
and Open Standards in politics, business, law and society at large.